Artist looks at arts institute from a different perspective

Tuesday

Aug 31, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 31, 2010 at 10:04 AM

As Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its museum building, designed by famed architect Philip Johnson, sculptor Ann Reichlin is creating an installation in response to the structure that might offer viewers a new look at the 1960 building.

CASSAUNDRA BABER

As Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its museum building, designed by famed architect Philip Johnson, sculptor Ann Reichlin is creating an installation in response to the structure that might offer viewers a new look at the 1960 building.

The sculpture intends to oppose the symmetrical lines, smooth surfaces and stylized perspective of Johnson’s work with raw materials, including steel and welded wire fabric.

“It’s interesting how it’s different and how it juxtaposes itself to the building,” said Mary Murray, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art. “She uses a rough construction material … and then she has situated the sculptural forms so that they create a dynamic between themselves.”

The materials Reichlin uses in the massive site-specific sculpture generally are found underneath the concrete and plaster of structures, rather than exposed as they will be in “Counterpoint,” which is currently being installed in the Edward Root Sculpture Court.

The completed work will be on exhibit from Sept. 11 through Jan. 9.

Murray hopes those who view the sculpture will be able to make a statement about the building based on the relationship the artwork creates.

“I’m in hopes that the visitors will be perhaps more sensitive to the architecture because of the sculpture’s placement, and because of the response to the building, it will heighten an awareness to the building itself,” Murray said.

Reichlin spent more than a year studying Johnson, the building and architects he influenced.

“I’m a sculptor, so my perspective is different from an architect,” she said, adding she was guided by some of the lines and shapes used by Johnson.

She mimicked the black pillars lining the walk space, which actually cover cables that hold up the building, with black wire mesh fabric over columns of the grids.

“I want to harness the museum, and at the same time, oppose it; use its strength to say something different about it,” Reichlin said.

It took months of research, observation and study to come to that concept.

After making dozens of models and drawings, Reichlin’s point of entry was something she imagined: She pictured a large dome covering the museum’s sculpture court; the piece depicts the fallen dome, split into pieces. The curved pieces of the “phantom dome” become suspended in three “hosts” – grids made of steel and welded wire fabric, asymmetrically situated and reaching as high as 17 feet above the marble floor toward the leaded skylight.

The dome’s pieces – made of a silvery, translucent welded wire fabric traditionally used in stucco – appear woven into the towering structures.

It took several months to build the structures in her Ithaca studio. And then she had to take them all down, transport the pieces in five moving trucks to the museum and begin all over again, in a sense.

“So, it’s like a hybrid,” she said from the museum’s sculpture court, surrounded by metal scraps, tools, scaffolding and lumber. She’s been installing the piece since Aug. 23, and will continue through Sept. 11. An in-progress gallery talk will be at 1:10 p.m. Friday.

This isn’t the first time Reichlin’s created a site-specific piece in Utica. While an artist in residence, she created a series of projects on the grounds of Sculpture Space at 914 Whitesboro St.

Each piece played off of a different stage of an abandoned building – from deterioration to demolition. Her “Translucent Home” sculpture still stands where the demolished house once did. Photos from the 10 years she’s been creating such pieces will be exhibited in the museum’s gallery.